The kitty Cat is now an American! She's terrible at tests usually, and her extremely slow progress with learning English over the years made her very nervous about her naturalization interview. She studied very hard for the test for about two months and she passed, and luckily the guy who interviewed her was very kind to her--almost like a very nice uncle.

I generally helped drive her around to attend naturalization preparation talks, find information online, give her mock-tests, teach her English, and comfort her when she's freaking out. I think I did well.

2) Do a kickass job on the workshop I'll be teaching for cgtalk.

Things took a different direction than I had predicted. The course material started to snowball and became this epic thing. I started to see it a a way to summarize the most important things I've ever learned as an artist to date, and my goal became more ambitious. I started to feel like I wanted to do more than just teach how to draw and paint--I wanted to change lives. I wanted to really shake things up for aspiring artists so they are getting a very well-rounded education that not only teaches techniques and knowledge, but also creative methodologies, imagination and intent, artistic integrity, understanding aesthetics and taste, to highly sophisticated subjects like the inner workings of stylization. It consumed most of my time during the entire year of 2009, and I'm not done yet. I still have a few more weeks to go to finish up the video portion of the course material, and then I can finally end that chapter of my life. You can find out the details about the workshop here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=166&t=828694

3) Start writing seriously again (novel, screenplays).

I did do some writing, but I didn't have too much time for it. I worked on a post-apocalyptic horror novel and also synopses for a few new ideas (usually they come to be in my dreams or find me in the shower).

4) Continue to grow as a composer, musician, and sound designer.

I didn't have time for music either, which was unfortunate since that's what I looked forward to the most when I quit my job in 2008. I did add some new gears to the studio and I finally bought a Zendrum after wanting one all these years. I've been practicing hard on it whenever I take a break, and just in a few months I feel like I'm already kicking a bit of ass on it. I have never improved so fast on an instrument before--none of the other instruments I play felt like this (or maybe I'm just overall a better musician coming to the Zendrum with more experience than with the previous instruments I learned). I recorded a few short demos this year, but finished nothing. I'm sure this will change drastically next year.

5) Now that I've been away from doing art for a living for a bit, I'm finding myself slowly getting the old passion back. I'll probably start painting for myself again soon.

Other than the course material for the workshop, I didn't have time for anything else. This would likely change next year though.

And I did exercise a few times this year, but that's not exactly progress.

What I learned this year:

1) I learned to play the Zendrum, and I'm getting pretty good on it.
2) I'm better at relaxing than before. I'm still very hard on myself and push myself too hard, but I'm better at knowing when to back0ff and let myself breath a little. Overall I'm feeling more peaceful with each passing year.
3) It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful my marriage is--it's one of the absolute best I've seen of anyone I know. This year we both seemed to feel it even more--that extra appreciation for what we have. It's like dream, and it's been more than seven years, and only keeps getting stronger. We can count on one hand how many times we've argued in the eight years we've known each other and the seven years we've been married. It really struck home this year that as long as Elena and I have each other, life can't ever be that bad.

Now, this year's resolutions:

1) Get the workshop out there and really help aspiring artists who are passionate and want to learn. Give them the kind of learning experience that I wish I could've had as a young pup.

2) Make some killer Zendrum videos for youtube and really show off the capabilities of this wonderful instrument.

3) Make lots of music. 2010 should be a year where I finally get to dedicate a lot of time to music. I hope nothing unexpected will come up and mess with that. I've been wanting this for so many years and I'm now so close.

4) Go into production on my long-term multimedia novel project. I'm not sure if I'll be in the right mindset for it when the time comes, since I might be too immersed in music to want to do anything else. We'll see.

5) Go vacationing in Japan with Elena and have a great time. I'm actually not as excited about it as I should be since I'm looking forward to living and breathing music with no other distractions (except teaching the workshop), but she's been talking about going to Japan for a while now, and we're not getting any younger.

6) Find a pair of full-size and IEM headphones that can hold their own against my Klein + Hummel O300D studio monitors in terms of resolution, neutral frequency response, detail, and musicality, and hopefully without costing me an arm and a leg. I'm pretty happy with my Sennheiser HD650 and Westone 3, but they could be better. I know I'm after something that might be physically impossible for headphones to achieve, but I gotta try cuz I'm a PITA like that.

In no particular order: join/start a painting circle in Stockholm, anybody interested?. Get better at tennis. Do some serious research to find an education. Amp up the buddy networking. Go for broke in the lovegame(it's called dating huh?).

Phuf! that's enough for the next decade, geez.

Luna; Have to check out your workshop at CGtalk sounds really kickass.

Lunatique - I admire your goals. I hope you succeed. Thanks for posting these new years threads.

Returner - Tennisss, an excellent form of enjoyable exercise!

As for me;

- Get back in shape, physically. (The plan is DDR, push ups, sit ups, and jogging.)
- Wear that %^&*ing retainer...
- Post on the SpeedPainting thread more
- Need to break a few addictions
(Sitting for hours on deviantart collecting photo references. I have too much unorganized reference images. (Models, Environments, etc...)
- Pick up some kind of new random activity to include within the daily routine. Suggestions? Anything beneficial to health would be cool.

Tsk, that's a lousy resolution Shizo You're very lucky Luna regarding your relationship-that's about the best blessing a person could get in life, after being healthy and whole. My resolutions are to continue with life drawing and anatomy studies, take some singing lessons (don't worry, I only inflict it on myself and ocassionally my GF), and to learn how to pull off the moves I can't do yet in my latest martial arts form. _________________-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

7) Finally upgrade the living room entertainment system sound system to something better. Still not sure if I want to go 5.1 surround or just a good 2.1 setup. I only play games in my studio and I already have a surround setup for that, and surround sound for movies never really felt like something important to us, so maybe just a 2.1 system.

Get a life-size humanoid opponent body bag and really put some effort into getting in shape. I don't mind using the exercise machine while watching a DVD, but I think martial arts punches and kicks would relieve tension and stress more, and also improve self-defense skills.

1. Save money. I learned this lesson last year with the hard way. I got laid off about two weeks ago and realized that I donīt have any money.
2. Paint and experiment. Iīve already started an expirimenting thread under the Digital Art Discussion topic. That thread was inspired by Gnomon workshops - master class lessons.
3. Get some sleep. For some reason Iīve had a hard time with sleeping lately. I think that this is the hardest of these three. I can try to sleep, but it feels like itīs not up to me when I fall a sleep.

3. Get some sleep. For some reason Iīve had a hard time with sleeping lately. I think that this is the hardest of these three. I can try to sleep, but it feels like itīs not up to me when I fall a sleep.

Find torrents for a BBC TV show called "How to Sleep Better." It's got some very interesting stuff that I haven't seen anywhere else.